A Quickie SketchUp Technique

Thanks much Dave!!! Your tutorials are priceless!!!!

-- Oldworld, Fair Oaks, Ca

You’re welcome. And thank you.

-- Until you spread your wings, you'll have no idea how far you can walk.

Simplicity at it’s best!

Thanks for the post.

-- When in doubt - There is no doubt - Go the safer route.

Shoot. 2 Moves? That’s all you got?
I can do that with at least 8 moves and probably spend 10 times longer at it.
:-))
Thanks again.

-- Use the fence Luke

Sorry Doug. I’ll try harder. :-)

The other day a fellow told me he was struggling for several hours with getting curved tapers on the two outside legs for a table. I felt kind of bad when I showed him the following. I wondered if I should have showed him something harder to make him feel better about the time he spent on it.

I think it is easy to get hung up on things sometimes and overlook an easy way to do something. It’s not just in sketchUp though and I think it happens to everyone now and then.

-- Until you spread your wings, you'll have no idea how far you can walk.

Dang Dave – you make it look so easy. I still struggle with the SU program – but I’m trying.

What’s your thought on being able to do SU without a real eye for design? Could that be why some of us, me in particular, struggle with the program?

-- You can't get a hug from Facebook.

Betsy, those were both fairly basic techniques but they do take practice. Or rather it takes some practice to know when to use them. It’s a bit like knowing which tool you want when doing some particular thing at the lathe. It’s been so long since I’ve turned anything on a lathe that I wouldn’t be particularly fast or graceful.

As far as your question, I don’t know that a lack of sense of design would cause difficulty in learning SketchUp. I think that sort of thing might cause you to draw poorly proportioned table legs or a tall, skinny armoire. The latter might have its place if you are tall like Abe Lincoln and you only have one suit. :-)

I think it is really mostly practice. I suppose some spatial cognition and the ability to visialize what you want to end up with, is useful. One of the things I find useful in drawing for woodworking projects is to break things down into smaller chunks and put those things together. You know what they say about how to eat an elephant.

Keep plugging away. It’ll come.

-- Until you spread your wings, you'll have no idea how far you can walk.

All makes sense to me. Thanks Dave!

-- You can't get a hug from Facebook.

The move tool has a deceptive name in Sketchup, and I think it confuses allot of people especially people like me who come from an AutoCAD background. It took me a while to understand that it is not only a “move” tool in the traditional sense, it is also a modify tool, allowing you to move elements of geometry within a group an effect the overall shape of the group. In AutoCAD move is just that…move! It is so much more in SU, and it is also a copy tool as well, with many interesting features. Move just doesn’t say it all for that tool! I think move/modify would better describe it!

Betsy I think your question is a valid one and I think that it has allot to do with some peoples frustration level with trying to learn SU…or any 3D deign tool. Part of what makes a good designer is the ability too be able to envision things in 3 dimensions…to sort of design things in your head, then get that idea to paper..or computer screen. Its allot like carving or sculpting…the artist can envision the finished piece in his mind, and then use his hands and tools to realize that idea in his medium.

-- David, South Windsor, CT "I love the smell of sawdust in the morning"

YEEEEOWWW!!! That is SLICK!
I just had to take the technique to a rediculous extreme.

db

-- If a man says something in the forest and there's no woman to hear it, is he still wrong?

Dave -

I always look forward to your SU tutorials! Today, an extra surprise . . . another tutorial buried in your responses to this post. Thanks!

-- http://foldingrule.blogspot.com